Why You Should Get Creative with Your Food!

465188989People show their creativity in different ways. You may sing, dance, rap, paint, sculpt, design, direct, write, cook, or go with the flow with something else and give it your own unique spin. Your canvas can be anything that you desire, including your plate.

What you choose for your meals—your ingredients, dishes, utensils, oils, and spices—is all part of the bigger picture that is your creative mind, heart, and soul. Every decision you make is a work of art.

Even your kitchen is a masterpiece. It is a reflection of who you are. What is on your refrigerator? How did you choose your oven? Was it the price, shape, or color? Is there a particular design of your kitchen table that was custom built to fit your imagination?

What you eat can also spark your creative juices.

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Consider any famous artist in the world. World-famous Spanish painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso consumed a lot of fish and spinach, which are foods excellent for brain health. The well-known American author and journalist Ernest Hemingway often ate fish, meats, avocado, and other fruits, which also helped increase the creative juices of his brain. Several actors and artists today eat plant-based diets, and, when done properly, can give you more energy and several health benefits for a longer life.

A combination of what you eat and how you eat it will bring many creative benefits, which helps one creative act lead to another. Here are five tips to add more creativity into your kitchen cooking that may lead to other works of art as well.

Give Limitless Time for Your Creation

Everyone is busy. That’s a timeless story in North America, which leads to meal planning or even sometimes unhealthy takeout choices. Consider blocking off a three-hour window for two meals a week to just unwind and take as much time as you want to make the meal. This will eliminate any restrictions on thinking a meal has to look a certain way.

Part of cooking healthy and nutritious meals is the fun and love you put into them. It may not take long to make a meal, but you shouldn’t rush or limit yourself. Rid yourself of time constraints to allow your creative juices to flow more freely.

Don’t Use a Recipe

Recipes sometimes hold people back. A pinch of this and two tablespoons of that is a method that is definitely useful; however, you know that everyone is eating the exact same meal. On occasion, it’s fun to just let go and be free of any rules. That way, when the meal is ready to serve, it is completely unique, and you are using your intuition instead of what someone else told you is correct. When you taste as you cook, you innately know that your meal will turn out as you had envisioned. Write down your recipe, and one day you may creatively be selling your cookbook.

Add More Color

Color is an important component of a balanced meal. Having a wide variety of colors in your meal will help balance your chakras and help center the energy systems within your body. Think of the colors of the rainbow, which are similar to the chakras with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

Creativity is all around us, and color is an easy way to spark it. The more colorful your meal, the healthier it is for your body. It also produces a better story on how you made the meal as well (such as how you got your hands dirty with your kids while baking).

Spice Things Up

Do you ever find that your meal is too plain and simple? Adding some healthy herbs and spices will add some creativity and make the healthy recipe your own. Indian herbs and spices include cumin, coriander, dill, fenugreek, curry, and turmeric. Italian spices include basil, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, and thyme. Herbs and spices from Mediterranean culture include bay leaves, black caraway seeds, cardamom, chives, and cilantro. There are many other traditions that prominently use herbs and spices, which uniquely make the dish tasty and creative.

Change Things Up

Have variety in your diet. Do you make the same meals week after week? Be courageous enough to try vegetarian plant-based meals during your week. Make things you have never tried before. Flip through diet and wellness books and make it your mission to create whatever resonates with you. Maybe you pick up a book on the Paleo diet, the Mediterranean diet, or the vegan diet, and you try something completely foreign to what you’ve done before. Mixing things up is a courageous move and it is bound to spark some future creativity for your meal and your life.

Creative work is also known to put you in a better mood, relieve stress, and positively impact your immune function and mental health overall. Research even shows that any creative activity has a beneficial effect on your health. And while your regular diet of healthy foods helps your health positively, a creative outlook on life just enhances your health that much more.

Sources:
McLaughlin, A., “The Diet, Exercise and Creativity Connection,” LIVESTRONG.com web site, Aug. 16, 2013; http://www.livestrong.com/article/551717-the-diet-exercise-and-creativity-connection/.

Carson, S., “Can Being Creative Improve Your Health?” LIVESTRONG.com web site; http://www.livestrong.com/blog/blog/can-being-creative-improve-your-health-shelley-carson/, last accessed March 26, 2014.
Krishan, S., “10 Ways to Be a More Creative Cook,” Care2 Healthy Living web site, April 27, 2013; http://www.care2.com/greenliving/10-ways-to-be-a-more-creative-cook.html. 

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